Stay Worried
Economics 101
What worries me about President Obama is really one general issue: his very concrete enjoyment of the good life as evidenced by his golf outings, Martha’s Vineyard vacations, and imperial entourages that accompany him abroad, and yet his obvious distrust of the private sector and the success of the wealthy. Yet my discomfort here is not even one that arises from an obvious hypocrisy of, say, a Michelle on the 2008 campaign trail lecturing the nation about its meanness or her own previous lack of pride in her country, juxtaposed with her taste for the publicly provided rarefied enjoyments of a Costa del Sol hideaway at a time of recession.
No, my worries run deeper. Apparently, the president is unaware that after some 2,500 years of both experience with and abstract thought about Western national economies, we know that a free, private sector increases the general wealth of a nation, while a statist redistributive state results in a general impoverishment of the population. At the root of that truth is simple human nature — that people wish to further their own interest more fervently than the more abstract public good (e.g., why the renter does not wash the rental car, or why the public restroom is treated differently from its counterpart at home), and can be encouraged to invent, create, and discover which in turn helps the less fortunate, lucky, healthy, or talented.
Texas or California?
We all accept, of course, that the question is not one of a laissez-faire, unchecked robber baron arena, versus a Marxist-Leninist closed economy, but rather in a modern Western liberal state the finer line between a Greece and a Switzerland, or a California and a Texas.
In the former examples, the desire to achieve an equality of result through high taxes, generous public employment, and lavish entitlements destroys incentive in two directions — creating dependency on the part of the more numerous recipients of government largess, and despair among the smaller but more productive sector that sees the fruits of its labor redistributed to others — with all the obligatory state rhetoric about greed and social justice that legitimizes such transfers.
In the latter examples, an equality of opportunity allows citizens to create wealth and capital on the assurances that the incentives for personal gain and retention of profits will result in greater riches for all.
Neither Baron nor Insect
We in America more or less understood that dichotomy, and so neither idolized a Bill Gates or Warren Buffett with titles like count, lord, or baron, nor demonized them with revolutionary spite (i.e., “insect,” “enemy of the people,” or even “greedy” and “selfish”). Instead, we assumed that Buffett had enriched his investors and more or less could not possibly use all the vast billions he accumulated (he, in fact, lived rather modestly and much of his treasure will probably end up in the Gates Foundation). One way or another, it was worth having Microsoft Word with the expectation that the zillionaire Bill Gates’ shower is still no hotter than ours, and his private jet goes not much faster than our own cut-rate Southwest Airlines flights. All that seems simple enough — until now.
So, again, what troubles me is that the president seems unaware of this old divide — that what allowed the pre-presidential Obamas, respectively, to make quite a lot of money as a legislator, author, professor, lawyer, or hospital representative was a vibrant private sector that paid taxes on profits that fueled public spending and employment or made possible an affluent literary and legal world. All that was contingent upon the assurance that an individual would have a good chance of making a profit and keeping it in exchange for incurring the risk of hiring employees and buying new equipment.
Grows on Trees?
Instead, Obama seems to think that making money is a casual enterprise, not nearly so difficult as community organizing, and without the intellectual rigor of academia — as if profits leap out of the head of Zeus. I say that not casually or slanderously, but based on the profile of his cabinet appointments, his and his wife’s various speeches relating Barack Obama’s own decision to shun the supposed easy money of corporate America for more noble community service in Chicago, and a series of troubling ad hoc, off-the-cuff revealing statements like the following:
As a state legislator Barack Obama lamented the civil rights movement’s reliance on the court system to ensure equality-of-result social justice rather than working through legislatures, which were the “actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.” To Joe Wurzelbacher, he breezily scoffed that “my attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” When Charlie Gibson pressed presidential candidate Obama on his desire to hike capital gains taxes when historically such policies have decreased aggregate federal revenue, a startled Obama insisted that the punitive notion, not the money, was the real issue: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.” And as President Obama, again in an off-handed matter, he suggested that the state might have an interest on what individuals make: “I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
In other words, for most of his life Barack Obama has done quite well without understanding how and why American capital is created, and has enjoyed the lifestyle of the elite in the concrete as much as in the abstract he has questioned its foundations. Does he finally see that the threat of borrowing huge amounts to grow government to redistribute income through higher taxes risks greater impoverishment for all of us, despite the perceived “fairness”? That suspicion alone explains why those with trillions of dollars are sitting on the sidelines despite low interest, low inflation, and a rebounding global economy. In short, millions of profit-makers believe not only will it be harder to make a profit, but far less of it will remain their own— and all the while the president will deprecate the efforts of those who simply wish do well for themselves. With proverbial friends like those, who needs enemies?
Until that mindset changes and can be seen by the public to change, the recession will not so easily end.
Footnotes
Col. Chris Gibson ran a brilliant campaign in New York’s 20th Congressional District; although polls had him initially down by a substantial margin, he handily defeated his opponent and now becomes a U.S. congressman — surely one of the most unique representatives in the House of Representatives: decorated combat veteran, distinguished officer, author, professor, accomplished PhD., and of sterling character. Thanks to readers who followed or donated to his campaign.
Riposte Department
From time to time I try to answer charges to set the record straight as carefully as I can sine ira ac studio.
Thomas Ricks
The military correspondent Thomas Ricks recently wrote an off-handed attack on Carnage and Culture (a near decade after its publication and after over 100 reviews had appraised the book), citing the three-year old smear by Robert Bateman (e.g., “Lt. Col. Bob Bateman, who is both an active-duty officer and an academic with terrific credentials in military history, delivered the coup de grace in a series of articles I hadn’t seen until recently…”) (Such as this one.) Of course, three years ago I responded at length to Bateman’s sloppy “coup de grace,”which was posted on the Soros-sponsored Media Matters website, an unscholarly attack that often indulged in the near obscene (e.g., “pervert,” “feces,” “devil,” etc.). I think Ricks is probably responding not to a book I authored a decade ago, but to a more recent scholarly review I wrote of his Fiasco that faulted his chronic use of unnamed and anonymous sources in offering a dismal picture of any chance of restoration in Iraq. I hold no animosity toward Ricks, but I still feel that Fiasco was neither a scholarly book nor fair in its use of evidence. (By the way, “terrific credentials,” of course, means that in his attack on Carnage and Culture Robert Bateman praised Thomas Ricks and objected to my review of his book.)
He’s Back
About once a year I reply to some silly ad hominem piece Andrew Sullivan writes. The latest: In reply to a statement from radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that I had met with President Bush, Sullivan now writes: “Maybe this doesn’t surprise you. But ponder its implications. George W. Bush could’ve called any man or woman in the United States to his office to get advice. Anyone in the military, any policy expert, the most knowledgeable American in any industry or field of knowledge. With whom did he apparently spend a lot of time conversing? Hanson, Hewitt, and some other talk radio hosts.”
This is adolescent. George Bush was in office nearly 3,000 days. I met with him 4-5 times, always with a group of historians, never one-on-one, rarely on topics only confined to the Iraq War. He often called in dozens of such groups to discuss books, history, and contemporary events. Somehow those visits translate into some wild theory that Bush did not consult hundreds of military analysts, officers, and planners in his thousands of days of governance.
Once again, I confess I do not understand the strange fits of Andrew Sullivan. He once contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against Saddam Hussein; in his Iraq War zealotry he dreamed of a Nobel Prize for George Bush — only to level wild charges of war crimes against dozens of American leaders. Later he peddled despicable rumors about the Palin family pregnancies, cruel and completely erroneous — and this from someone who in the past had pleaded for understanding and a sphere of privacy concerning his own embarrassing sexual escapades, drug arrest, and serial character lapses. His wildly erratic and often gratuitously mean behavior seems inexplicable and well beneath the norms of just those public figures that he so frequently attacks.
Sullivan? Sadly, drug and personal abuse added to drugs taken to survive such personal abuse will, over time, take their toll on the personality. A deeply unhappy man who cannot see that his personal unhappiness is self-induced.
C’mon, everybody knows that a regular cocktail of THC/MDMA/cocaine/steroids/testosterone (with a little ketamine likely thrown into the mix now and then) is good for you. After all, it works pretty well for Bill Maher (well, minus the ‘roids and testosterone), and Bill Maher is really smart. We should just legalize it all and tax it. That way we could pay off George Bush’s debt, free our minds so that we can be more creative and forward thinking, or something. Plus, we could wean ourselves off foreign oil and build a green economy by replacing oil and cars with hemp and unicorns.
In 2006 the budget deficit was 166 billion dollars, and democrat party won a majority in congress in november of that year, running on a platform calling for fiscal responsibility. In two years at close of 2008, the budget deficit had tripled to 500 billion dollars, under this new “fiscally responsible” democrat leadership.
In 2008 elections, democrat party retained majority in house, and voters elected Obama because he ran as a centrist.
This year, voters started to count the cost.
With a democrat majority in congress in 2006, an historic opportunity to make social security and medicare solvent, to demonstrate and prove to the voter and taxpayer that they were in fact fiscally responsible, democrat party effectively evacuated their bladder on this historic opportunity and went for the glory, even before the 2008 election.
These same freshman (so-call “blue dog”) democrats, that ran on that “fiscally responsible” platform 2006, were among the 61 members in the House of Representatives to be fired by the voters. They supported the Pelosi/Reid/Obama agenda and for their support, they were left twisting in the wind on the day of reckoning, election day. They were expendable, as the old guard democrat, Relosi, Reid, Patty Murray retained their seats in the most narrow of election result leads.
An historic opportunity squandered, following Nancy Pelosi’s stipulation, after the results of that election, that there would be no deficit spending on her watch, has risen up to haunt their weakened positions now.
And despite Patty Murray’s “victory”, her state defeated tax increases at the ballot box. I wonder how she will act with respect to the taxpaying Washington State voter in the months to come?
That’s right T.S., as Bill Maher said on a sunday talk show not too long ago wean ourselves right off oil just like Brazil (7th largest consumer of oil) has done since the 1970′s.
We must have enjoyed the same professors of economics.
However, it is my notion that Oscambo is deliberately trying to destroy our economy and sovereignty. He is neither an American nor is he intellectually challenged. He is a psychopathic communist-moslem according to his various behavior and self-professions; but in reality is a satanist. He delights in killing babies and in promoting homosexual perversions. Either of those professions would give the lie to his claim to be a Christian. His behavior shows him to be an atheist, with no fear of divine judgment and eternal punishment. This monster is out to make himself the moslem messiah and rule the world, with us as his slaves; or with us as corpses, according to his whim of the moment. Obama is another Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Dung, Idi Amin.
His goal is Satan’s goal- to destroy mankind. Will we stand by and watch while he does so?
The American economy will not significantly improve while Barack Obama remains in office. It may even worsen considerably. The Republicans are limited on what they can do to stop the disaster because they only control the House of Representatives. GOP legislators do not have a veto proof control of the U.S. Senate. Obama also has the power to sign executive orders and manipulate the government regulatory agencies. There were a number of people like Victor Davis Hanson and myself who warned long before the presidential election that Obama would probably prove to be a most destructive national leader. The majority of Americans instead listened to the Ivy League elites. This nonsense must cease. One should treat a soft science credential from one of the “best” universities as a piece of crap until proven otherwise. The burden of proving these so-called elites deserve respect is on their shoulders. Grade inflation is rampant—and the typical Ivy League graduate usually had to really whore it out good to obtain their soft discipline degree. They are far too often contemptuous of evidence and downright anti-intellectual.
I believe you are wrong about the economy. It is likely to show some improvement in the next two years.
- some version of the Bush tax cuts will be passed.
- Republicans will restrain spending and slow down onerous regulations.
- businessmen will look ahead to 2012 and anticipate a change of regime
- some or a lot of the cash on the sidelines will be released
- the marxists will ease the socialist accelerator to get the king re-elected
This will improve enough elements of the economy (employment, GDP) for the marists to claim a miracle. I think it is unavoidable. They will claim a miracle DESPITE the obstructionist Republicans, who will be the real reason a modest improvement happens.
For this reason, I think early, regular, and LOUD communication about what is really going on should be a very high priority by conservative’s most articulate spokepeople.
Do you deliberatey omit the effects of monetizing our debt, or do you feel such action by the Fed is inconsequential?
Monetizing the debt will work in the opposite direction. That’s why it isn’t on the list.
Monetization could well be significant enough to wipe out all of the other factors that could help the economy, in which case, the 2010 landslide will look like a stroll in the park.
Interesting; A Chinese government
economic spokesman made the same point
about Quantitative Easing II,
and there was a US election ad featuring
a Chinese economics professor giving an
explanation of how the US abandoned its
founding principles, suffered economic
collapse, and then the punchline:
‘So now they work for us.’
They all laughed, as well they might. :(
“I think early, regular, and LOUD communication about what is really going on should be a very high priority by conservative’s most articulate spokepeople.”
Hear, hear, I recommend the same people who are behind the “$200 million per day” story. That’s good stuff. Straight down the middle, high-credibility reportage, analysis, and political commentary by politicians and commentators! You betcha. That’s the ticket. Go after the message with the same veracity for truth and honesty that we’ve seen so far in the right wing machine.
Oh to finally live in the world of truth, justice and the American way. I feel like I could lead a tall building in a single bound.
Hosannah! Hosannah! thank you Rush and Sean and Mark and Laura and Michelle (and the other little yellow Michelle) and Drudge and WorldNetDaily. Without you we’d have no window into the truth.
Wow! “little yellow Michelle” That’s a real good point you bring up. Thank you for stopping by to enlighten us all.
non-sensei is a classic case of one of those ‘progressives’ who thrive on hate. For without hate, they are empty vessels of despair. He should really stick to what he knows best: living on hot pockets and having sex with stuffed animals his parents basement.
Sorry, was that politically incorrect?
Politically incorrect, over the top, in bad taste, way out of line, disgusting, sleazy and despicable. Take your pick, buttwipe. You’ve brought an all time low in trashiness to this site with your obnoxious and slimy behavior. You aren’t just very sick and slimy. You are evil.
Once again, sensei proves that liberals are ignorant bigots.
LOL, our ditzy, little Sensai is grasping at straws. Ya gotta love it.
That silly twit doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in the real world.
“other little yellow Michelle”
Stay classy, lefties.
oohhhh sentsey,
your anger at the down fall of your king is palpable..and smelly.
Normally I skip over when you write as you are a little man with a little mind. However your slur of Michelle Malkin caught my eye since I happen to be married to what you endearingly called “the other little yellow Michelle”, that being an Asian woman. Mine, however is Korean. How sweet, how kind and considerate of you. Now why don’t you crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out from and let the rest of us enjoy our victories.
What you need to recognize about this website’s resident creep and misfit, sensei, is that so many other people make that loser feel insecure, inferior, inadequate and stupid that sensei desperately needs to feel superior to someone or something other than a cockroach, although there are good reasons to suspect that cockroaches feel superior to sensei, too.
How appropriate that you call yourself “Little Sensei,” when you obviously have so very, very little to teach.
There is a yellow person out there named Michelle? The only cowardly Michelle I know of lives in the white house.
From a newbie, is “Your Sensei” our designated troll or does media matters allow us both “BC” and “Your Sensei”?
The infestation of troll regulars here are: Wow Really, Praetorian, Dwight, BC, Ditch Digger and Sensei. A few others come and go sporatically. Ours are the lamest ones on the blogosphere, but just as loony as others.
And there you have it sports fans, proof that the wingtards are willing tools for the institutional lying of the Tea News politico/media complex. Instead, you’re all outraged at a politically incorrect statement – political correctness being one of the things you hate the most. Oh, the irony. Oh, the hypocrisy. Oh, the lack of consistency when loosed from your moorings by the subtle jab of your intellectual and moral superior.
Thank you. I consider your offense an endorsement of my technique. So sad. So predictable. So vain. So guilty. I really think you should all take a few days off work, rent a nice RV and maybe tour this great nation of ours. Perhaps you’ll see that mindless adherence to media manipulation is not the currency of our great country. And it won’t cost you $200 million per day, no matter what Fox tells you.
All that’s left is to actually get on your feet. I’ve awakened you. Don’t hit the snooze alarm.
“the marxists will ease the socialist accelerator to get the king re-elected”
This is no longer a viable option. America is not perceived as a country requiring modest loans that it can easily repay at a later date. Lenders throughout the world now consider our country to be similar to the spendthrift fool teetering on bankruptcy who has maxed out all his credit cards. Inflating our currency will have serious repercussions.
Darn David please don’t give out all the secrets!
I think your counter-point is one in favor of my argument. I didn’t say that easing off the accelerator would be entirely voluntary. Some of it will be by necessity.
In general, it seems to me that the preponderance of conditions are set to allow a small improvement in the economy. That doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t like to continue destroying it, nor am I saying that there won’t be any factors pushing it closer to the cliff.
I agree with proreason; I think the economy will, on its own, gradually improve, particularly as the GOP start to reject government spending. We all know, of course, that Obama, a pathological liar, will claim credit for this upswing.
However, I don’t think that the radical socialists, the marxist gang of the GOP, will relax their agenda of statism and Ruler-Control of the nation. Indeed, as proreason points out, they will use the gradual change to affirm the inherent ‘truth’ of their agenda.
I agree; that the conservatives and the GOP must constantly communicate the real truth about the economy and the marxist agenda of the radical Democrats. This is vital. Obama lives in a bubble world, a virtual world, and he has no capacity to aknowledge reality; he lies as he breathes. We’ve seen that so often it’s beyond dispute.
Soros and his gang will never let up on this agenda, and Obama, their narcissistic puppet,is too ignorant and intellectually shallow to understand the real world result of the policies that he is promoting – other than that these policies give him power; that’s his only focus.
Remember, Obama is only a Teleprompter Voice. There is nothing to him beyond this. He has not merely no experience in the real world of accountability – for all his jobs have been achieved by contacts and affirmative action rather than merit, but he has no intelligence, no font of knowledge, no understanding of history or nations or economics.
All he is, is a psychologically pathological person who must control others, who is unable to relate to others as equal to him, unable to feel empathy, unable to even examine what he is doing. After all, he, in his Virtual World, is always Right.
In other words Obama is just a teenager still playing video games until the wee hours of the night with no real experience! He has yet to be told hey Barry it is time to grow up and get a job and get out of my house!
Of course you agree with proreason. You’re his sock puppet. :)
Gee, it seems like all one has to do is to get business to feel good, start hiring and “presto” everything is just super in the economy. Most seem to think that demand is created by businesses feeling good and hiring. You do realize if there was sufficient demand that business would hire enough employees to meet it? What you’ll be seeing in the next two months are temp holiday hires who will be gone mid-January. Everyone will jump up, shout loudly and drive a spike up in equities. Reality will set in around March. Businesses will not “hire” until a darn good reason exists to hire. After two years, lifestyles have changed and that will be extremely difficult to change.
Obama’s economy is simply toast. Fed action always has about a year lag time. We’re starting to see the 12% erosion in the dollar from Bernanke’s QEI, QEII will be felt sometime starting in 2012. If that doesn’t smother GDP (inflation) then supply shortages (think gasoline at $6/gallon) will. Either monetary or energy and commodity shortages or Obama’s continuing war with capitalism insures a staggering economy with unemployment above 9% until Obama sees the voters in Nov 2012. That is provided his party lets him.
The economy will be flat to negative for the next year. Then, in anticipation of Pres Obama’s departure, things will slowly start to improve.
I don’t think any president could have avoided all the economic misfortunes which have befallen Obama but some were surely of his own making. All presidents come into office with a certain amount of political capital to spend without much resistance. During this ‘honeymoon’ period Obama signed the Wall Street/Banking bailout bill (which he roundly criticized as full of pork) seemingly without critical consideration from economists outside the mainstream or thought about how it might be viewed on main street. He used it to mainly push through his ill-considered health care bill not realizing he had already spent most of his capital.
If he had vetoed the bill he was told the banking system and the economy would tank but would they have? We will never know. One thing is sure, those that warned the banks were in far worse shape than was publicly acknowledged and would likely become zombie banks like those in Japan, unable or unwilling to lend, were spot on. He might have pushed for open nationalization of the largest banks, assumed the mortgage debts (which we’ve indirectly, clumsily and more painfully done through Fannie and Freddie), broken them up, forced the share- and bond-holders to take haircuts and re-organized them into more regional banks that are not too large to fail.
Now what?
Now we face years, possibly decades of deflation, high unemployment and economic stagnation. Rather being some nemesis deflation is really the only solution. An effect of misguided taxes, spending, economic and monetary controls. It will, if allowed to operate, eventually right the economic ship of state. The truth is the future is really in the hands of Congress. If they continue on their current tact of ignoring expenses (esp. defense and entitlements) and renew attempts to spend our way out of this recession they may be forced to eliminate the Fed, take direct control of the money and banks. The next stop is probably collapse of the currency and economic ruin.
I think it is well established now that Barrack Obama’s seeming verbal facility — the crutch of the teleprompter seems to belie even this — does not mean he is educated in a broad sense or even intelligent beyond what might be said of an associate professor in an English department. Anyone who doesn’t understand profit is the basis of free enterprise and therefore freedom or minimizes its importance in the scheme of things has been influenced at an early and impressionable age by Marxist theory, as indubitably was the case with the president. As for Obama’s taste for pompous displays of wealth and power, I think it can be understood as the ultimate in bling.
During the campaign it was clear to me (based upon the one time he spoke about the topic), the Sen. Obama had no idea what a price to earnings ratio was.
And now he’s “running the economy.” Great.
I caught that price to something ratio comment by Obama as well. I don’t remember what exactly he referred to but I remember thinking that clearly this guy is a fraud. Maybe on of the other readers will remember just what it was.
Obama made reference to the prevailing “profits to earnings ratio” as indicating economic strength. Google the quoted phrase for the context.
you mean the following on Nov 3rd, 2009?
“On the other hand, what you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.”
Obama used former officers at Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac as his economic advisers during his campaign. Based on that alone, he is clearly lacking.
Watching Pres. Obama during one of his 2 or 3 press conferences and it is apparent he is out to sea without his teleprompter.
It is distressing to find that American voters are so easily duped.
There has been so much eco/soc destruction in such a short time by the unqualified person in charge of our country.
In the future I sincerely hope we have more common sense and look past “the first” anything.
Trouble is, just as there were people who were dumb enough to vote for Obama, there are people who will be dumb enough to vote for Palin. Further evidence of the dumbing down of mentally lazy Americans on both sides of the spectrum.
Hey, I’m an associate professor, and I’m not that dumb! (Admittedly, I’m an orthopaedic surgeon.)
As far as Obama is concerned, money does leap from the head of Zeus. In Obama’s world money comes from saying the right thing, meeting to right people, and attending the right dinner parties. Obama, so far as we know, knows nothing of a day’s labor. Heck, even the pampered silver-spooned Bush knew enough of the value of working with the hands that he’d clear brush at his Texas ranch while on vacation. Sure, the left made fun of him for it…but they missed the point. As always.
Boy, did the lefties miss the point of the brush clearing. The brush clearing is part of the successful ecological restoration project the Bushes have been performing at their ranch since they bought it. The lefties who mocked him for it are environmental illiterates.
Academia might be the only career field where failure is rewarded with tenure and other high honors. The rest of us have leaned to deal with real life consequences. We don’t have the option like Mr. Obama’s recently departed advisers to scurry back to the faculty lounge when things go awry. At this point neither does the president.
Skidding into a ditch is no big deal for red state Americans. We’ve been here before. We’ll be back on the road again in a minute, if we can just convince the kid behind the wheel not to mash down on the accelerator. Californians are preparing to do just that, and they’re about to find themselves buried up to the axles. The rest of us are inclined to let them walk back to town.
Meanwhile, the president says that he didn’t adequately articulate his positions. Yeah whatever, dude. I’m sorry, I meant President Dude.
Thanks for further good insights on Obama’s intentions and limitations. He is on a mission toward equal outcomes for all who support him and against all who do not. Face it, we ended up with him as president due to ignorant, uninformed voters who remain devoted to their fantacy. These folks have no intention of examining Obama’s history or performance. They are the result of “control the media to control the masses”. Election results suggest that some independents are catching on in spite of the media. We should be ready for Obama’s usual response of moving even further to the left in fact while his words will suggest otherwise. He is obviously counting on quickly creating a large enough dependent class to boost him for 2012.
You VDH are doing your part to overcome the public’s ignorance one article at a time. Continue the good fight as you and like minded citizens have become defined as the “enemy”. The second amendment becomes more important day by day as Obama creates division in order to advance his agenda. The astounding Nov.2nd election results can only be viewed as a good start toward restoring America. Obama and socialism must go.
As a business person I realize one basic fact: If I do well many people benefit. If I do really well many more people benefit. There is more benefit if I do really well but if I am taxed up to just doing well or doing just so-so and unable to do much better know matter how hard we work, how does this benefit either me or the many people whose wish is to improve? I feel for those who would see no improvement or benefit. Stagnation? Over taxation is stagnation and benefits no one ultimately. High taxation is evil.
The President has said many times that he wants to establish a homeland security force, like the military, to possibly usurp the power of our police and sheriff departments. But to form this force he needs an emergency. A crisis that he can use.
His behavior resembles the formula that Clover and Piven recommended to cause a societal breakdown that might bring violence. The formula is to spend like he’s spending. Add to that the possible terrorist threat from Mexico that may already be hiding here and the chance of violence and crisis increases.
So we see the wild spending, the question of solvency and the possibility of a terrorist attack that may be beyond the ability of local law enforcement to contain.
And it may be that the President is planning all along to spend and keep the border open to facilitate crisis so eventually he can create his homeland army.
The question remains whether or not the President is planning the destruction of America as we know it. It’s a damning conspiracy theory but not without evidence.
Ron, I think there are plenty of us here(in this US of A) who will be willing to deal with his “homeland security force”.
Roger that!
I believe you must be referring to Cloward and Piven, of the great Cloward-Piven Strategy. Glenn Beck played audio the other day of Frances Piven urging Progressives to be patient because, although it may not seem like Barack is doing much (to further the Strategy, I assume), he’s doing a lot “under the radar.”
I don’t know about you but I know that I’m relieved by her reassuring words.
Andrew Sullivan. Now there is an enemy one might envy Victor for, on the theory, which I believe in, that the lowness of one’s enemies can help demonstrate one’s worth and character.
Dear Prof. Hanson,
Congratulations on Col. Gibson! And thanks.
No doubt your help was key to his election.
Thanks to you, I knew to make a donation to his campaign.
Dr. Hansen:
I’m curious as to how a Historian would compare the positions Pres. Obama has held (Community Organizer,etc) to the multitude of offices nobles’ sons were routinely appointed to with secure sinecures during the Renaissance.
VDH:
“the president is unaware that after some 2,500 years…”
Obama is dismissive of Western history. He has found it convenient, and ennobling, to do so his whole life. More than anything else, this is what makes him who he is. He sees himself primarily not as a consumer of historical precedent, but as a change agent of historical paradigms. His arrogance provides the only validation his beliefs require. This was pretty clear from his post-election address. The opposition made history, and he ignored it.
The Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank.
Obama is a one-trick pony.
When the only tool you have is a hammer – every problem looks like a nail.
Thanks VDH, for the steady drumbeat.
Words just words what we have here is a reader of WORDS he has no substance is not only a one trick pony but a one term failed president!
The bright side is Jimmy Carter will no longer be the worst president ever. Obama was a failed experiment, the good thing is he and his administration can be used as a BAD EXAMPLE, since no experiment is a complete failure it only serves as to not do that again!
Texas v California ethos will not be the deciding contest from here on out.
Texas puts too much of its taxation load on homeowners to make it healthy long term. If it changes that, fine. But not by adding taxes elsewhere.
The States that will rise to the future are those who WILL learn and apply the lessons of Tuesday 2 November 2010. Those which radically cut taxes and regulation.
Why do VDH and many other conservative observers persist in the notion that poor President Obama just doesn’t understand or hasn’t been taught the principles of wealth creation and free societies?
In the face of overwhelming evidence, it requires mental jujitsu of the highest order to believe that he and his handlers are ignorant of what is blatantly obvious to the rest of the world…down to the lowest Mexican peasant who risks his life to get into this country.
Mr Hanson……OBAMA GETS IT.
But it isn’t what he wants, so he rejects it.
Many also reflect on how foolish Obama is to kill the golden goose…that is the other big argument why a man of his “obvious intelligence” is so mysteriously wrong about what he is doing. But this also is a false assumption.
Did Marie Antoinette suffer because the French in the 1780′s didn’t have the wealth creation engine that the United States has created? Did Josef Stalin live a hardscrabble life because he killed tens of millions of serfs who could have made his life even more sumptuous? Not hardly. An elite of .0001% can easily live in unimaginable luxury even if though their millions of peasants are squatting in the dirt. That is how kings, emperors and commissars have done it for millennia. For them, the bargain is a no-brainer. On the one hand, you have debased people unable to rise up but more than able to supply a lavish lifestyle to a handful of omnipotent rulers. On the other, you have free people with all of their annoying demands and the ability to arm themselves and overthrow their rulers, who only live a marginally better life than the omnipotent kings. Like I said, it’s a no-brainer.
Political philosophy has about .000000000001% to do with it. It’s about absolute power, because the corollary of absolute power is inconceivable luxury.
Political philosophy has about .000000000001% to do with it. It’s about absolute power, because the corollary of absolute power is inconceivable luxury.
Exactly so. But I believe that luxury as such pales before the desire to control and to harm others without consequence. This desire is irresistible to a profoundly evil subset of humanity. One of the lessons we can glean from an unflinching look at history and human nature is that in the end, power-lust invariably trumps greed.
I also think that we tend to ascribe too much competence and facility to 0bama; he is in my view captivated by what Lee Harris aptly described as ‘fantasy ideology’. 0bama’s a case of someone who has had the responsibilities and demands of leadership thrust upon him, and at which he is failing miserably. 0bama hardly knows what to do with the power that’s been invested in him as President of the US.
No, I am more concerned about those funding and enabling him. Here there be monsters. Will-to-power driven monsters.
Most of us haven’t been able to reconcile the stunning contradiction between the proclaimed intentions of this regime and their actual outcomes. It doesn’t make much sense, does it? Ayn Rand said that, “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
There is a context in which the actions of this regime make perfect sense. Niccolo Machiavelli, 15th century adviser to Florentine nobles had to say when it came to conquering those who lived in relative freedom:
The people who’ve now gotten their hands on the apparatus of the American State would rather rule in Hell than live in peace with the rest of us. They will happily reduce Western civilization to stinking pile of rubble and corpses as long as they believe that they will be the ones sitting on top of the ruins. Why? Because a free and prosperous people cannot be enslaved. They must be broken first. Laid waste, just as Machiavelli prescribed so long ago. Millions of us dead. The rest of us in chains. That’s the outcome of their cost-benefit analysis.
So don’t look now, but we’re all living in what’s left of a seriously weakened Constitutional republic in which the collapse of the ideas and first principles underlying individual liberty is very far advanced.
Take a good long look at what’s happening now in America. Then dare to turn around and take another look. If what they’re saying doesn’t square with what they’re doing; if it looks like there’s a concerted effort to destroy our once Constitutional Republic and replace it with… something else – then you’re probably right. None of what’s happening today makes any sense at all unless you look at it that way – and then it makes a perfectly clear and terrible sort of sense, doesn’t it?
By every measure of reason, this regime is working to destroy our republic for their own ends. Even at its worst, America, even with all of its faults, is a paradise compared to the concentration camp culture of the Machiavellian Marxists behind 0bama who have gotten the upper hand today.
But Machiavelli also offers us another astute insight into history and human nature:
We’ve begun to elect such individuals, and there are others in the wings who will step forward. Col. Allen West and Herman Cain, for examples of the former and the latter case. History teaches us that the course of nations and peoples has and can be changed by the actions of one individual – precisely the point of Machiavelli’s quote cited above. We can only hope that it is not too late for our Republic.
It is absolutely not too late. In fact this disaster of a presidency is a blessing in disguise. Only somebody on whom so much hope had been lavished could have woken up the American people to the peril that has been creeping up on them for decades. Obama does not have the stomach for a real fight but the American people do – and that is why the republic will not only endure but go on to greater heights. Not for nothing did the firefighters go into the inferno and not for nothing did the passengers take down the plane.
very well done, well stated. your essay what needs to be repeated every where.
there is no contradiction.
Yes Mr. Dorrity, well said indeed.
A better understanding of BHO may arise in the study of Alexis de Tocqueville who has also been described as an eminent representative of the classical liberal political tradition. Tocqueville has provided many recorded conclusions amazingly parallel to the antics of the chosen one while enjoying worldly gallivanting, but only at the expense of inherited wealth and that of his hosts. His ability to part company at precisely the right time was evident in his history and used wisely to relocate and warp the subject of discussion to subtly support a verbose adjusted agenda. What’s missing today is his keen observation of fact.
Barry’s ideological rigidity seems to be anchored in a bi-polar personality disorder image reflected in his narcissistic pool since neither his genealogy nor his puny expressions of plagiarism reveal any banner waving characteristics that deserve to be chiseled in stone. Neurotics are never self diagnosed among their own kind even after neurosis has been upgraded to psychosis of lesser degree.
November’s Tsunami may be the cornerstone of required eternal vigilance preceding the Waterloo of his political retirement. Being accused of racism should be the only penalty for dragging all the czars and sixty plus admitted social democrats through a corrupt defense by delay court system. After the court sweep in one mid west state the term “hanging judge” may yet become an inverse passive reality.
I can help you to uderstand the strange fits of Andrew Sullivan for I have worked closely with drug addicts for many years. He is suffering from a form of psychosis that is the result of decades of chronic marijuana use.
Professor, the first part on “Econ 101″ gets at something I have seen in Obama for a long time. He has never been in any profession you can actually FAIL at. Private business is absolutely unforgiving that way, just as farming is, or medicine, accounting, firefighting, or plumbing. In these professions — what I call the “accountable professions” — you can tell failure from success, and the difference matters enormously. With failure in the accountable professions, toilets don’t flush and basements flood, crops don’t come in, homes burn down, people lose their livelihoods, go to jail, and even die.
The possibility of failure is a powerful tiebreaker. Obama has never known what it’s like to face it, move heaven and earth to avoid it, experience it, or recover from it. He doesn’t have a visceral sense for what millions of Americans know we’re facing today, because he has spent his entire life living like one of Solomon’s lilies of the field, while others work in the accountable — indispensable — professions making him possible.
Accountable professions, good description. Perhaps this is his first experience with accountability. I can’t wait to see the 2012 campaign ads–and I can’t imagine he’ll agree to any debates–there could be any number of hard-hitting comparisons of what he said he was going to do and what he did. Will the Democratic party wake up and realize what a liability this guy is??
Actually, Obama has participated in an accountable profession, but in a very strange way.
You may remember that he has made millions of dollars through his memoirs, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.
Without Dreams, he would not have become President, and yet he was able to make a pile of money from it. You would think the obvious care and considerable effort that went into that book would make him more sympathetic to the efforts of producers.
Unfortunately it appears to be Bill Ayers, not Obama, who put that effort into Dreams. Obama was unable to write the book and turned to Ayers for help.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/how_obama_himself_made_more_th_1.html
Jack Cashill, the writer of that piece, also wrote a number of fascinating articles comparing the text of Dreams with that of Fugitive Days, written by Ayers. They show that Ayers was responsible for the stylistic flair that eventually made Dreams world renowned. You can check this out yourself because the beginning of Ayers’ book can be found online at Amazon. When I read it, I realized it was indeed shockingly similar to Dreams.
Since this allegation is truly explosive and shocking, I encourage you to check out both books and come to your own conclusion. But I personally have no doubt of the truth: Obama made his pile and became President by convincing someone else to write for him.
No wonder he thinks you can make money without effort.
D
I wonder why people bought this pile of crap in the first place much less read it. The Farce in Chief he is indeed!
Impeachment even if unsuccessful is or should be the next priority of the new Congress! Try it over and over and do it with overnight weekend sessions!
He will make even more money after he leaves office. Speeches, personal appearances etc..the first black president(ial failure).
We sincerely believe he ‘gets it”…he/handers just didn’t think we would “get it” so fast and react in such force. I do not believe he is a good man with American’s best interest at heart. ‘would love to see him in a debate with no prompter..and me doing the mediation, and proposing the questions.
“Greedy”? “Selfish”? Like Democrats and/or bureaucrats in general? (They have everyone else beat.)
Of course, President Obama knows that his financial policies are going to impoverish Americans. Severe impoverishment appears to be the goal.
Cloward-Piven. It seems glib and facile, but that strategy fits the observed facts, i.e., the actions of the Obama administration.
There are two parts to the Obama-Democratic Party structure.
There is Obama himself, whom I see as the arrogant, selfish and egoistic puppet, the salesman, of the Radical Democratic Gang. Obama is not an intellectual; he is not a follower of socialism because he, intellectually, has read, examined and analyzed socialist theories and concluded that ‘it’s best’. He is a socialist because it is the only political ideology that puts Rulers in control of the population – who are without power.
Obama is a clinical narcissist; this is not a mild neurosis but a severe pathology. As such, he is unable to related directly with other people on an equal basis; he must control others. And, as such, he is unable to live in reality; he lives in a virtual reality of his own authorship and control. Hence – the rhetoric and the enormous gap between his rhetoric and reality, hence his renaming of such realities as terrorism and so on. Obama is pathological in mind and action and unable to change or modify his exponentially increasing need to control.
The other part of this structure is the agenda of the radical Democrats who have a political, not psychological agenda, of control. They want to insert statism into the US, headed by an elitist set of Rulers. This mindset can be seen in the agenda of George Soros who funds and guides them; in the various ‘czars’ appointed by Obama; in the pathology of Pelosi and Reid and others who focus on ‘divide and conquer’ tactics of the electorate.
Both parts of this structure: that of Obama as President and that of the radical Gang who are in control of the Democratic Party, have one focus and only one focus. Power. For Obama as Himself; for the Gang as control of America and the people. Neither has any interest in America and its people.
like a child he has not shed his narcissistic tendencies as most (with the exception of the average democrat voter) grown ups do.
he is and will remain a monster. a self indulged pr!ck. it really is a simple as that. he cares for no one but himself.
no need to write in more then that, he has proven the above to be the case over and over. why wont you see it VDH. remember your opinions when you first went to university.
welcome to africa
Obama does not get it. The question is how the Republicans act since they now control the purse strings.
Obama does get it — he just doesn’t care. Pity
Doc, nearly all posters are in accord with you.
The CiC possesses near nil analytical skills.
His claim to fame is being a non-tenured Lecturer.. err, ‘Professor’.
“Non-tenured” isn’t the issue. Obama was an “adjunct,” which is a purely ceremonial title.
There might be many ways that Obama and Andrew Sullivan “cohere”, or are in synch.
Consider “drugs”
Sullivan is one of the penultimate poster “boys” of the class of illegal drug aficionados, and I wonder, as someone who dabbled in them when younger, if he’s ever stopped sucking them in.
Obama, from all I can gather about his life’s choices, sure seems like the ultimate “successful” user of the “drugs” of left liberal or socialistic ideology.
A mentor of mine, Alan Watts, many years ago wrote about his own experience with LSD and such drugs. He said he stopped, when he got the message. If you’re on the phone and you receive the incoming message—you HANG UP!
These days, Reality is continuing to speed up, witness the whole communication network tying first world Americans together.
Instant MESSAGING, itself, is THE blatant message—we need to GET IT, and hang up!
One of the realized “problems” that’s long been noticed and worried many is that we are 24/7/365 inundated with incoming MESSAGES. It seems like only yesterday, to this 68-year-old, that people started talking IN PUBLIC on cell phones, and now?
The local library was forced to change from “no talking” to setting aside an area for patrons to freely talk away!
Is it possible to get too much feedback?
I think our human condition has devolved, driven by the evolved technological instruments, into a dangerous situation.
We resemble thermostats, especially wrt the political spectrum, as evidenced by recent elections. In a way, with the informational feedback “messaging” we have to process, I believe quite a few people have become very confused and neurotic, even.
If the on-off band of a thermostat is too narrow, the oven, say, will turn on and off at too quick a fashion! This is neurotic! Happy-sad, left-right, yes-no!
If/when this gets too extreme, the “machine” will have to start shaking, and set up a pattern that would eventually tear it apart. Just so, for a lot of humans—Sullivan!
Apply this idea to Obama. His whole life’s experiences, and his processing of them, under the early programming he got about “spreading the wealth” et al, in essence stand as one of the best representatives of that class of “newer” Americans who’ve been “messaged” to his STUPIDITY death!
That is, his closed mind is absolutely understandable, given his past.
And, to truly wake up and grow, one has to be at least somewhat OPEN to real CHANGE—and, he’s indubitably NOT!
Hubris bites. And, bites back, eh Obama?
Dear Professor,
I really like you, you must be a very good person.
I say this because after two years of Obama’s administration relentless attacks against the might of America, you still think that this administration is “making mistakes”.
You don’t seem able to think that evil does exist.
That’s a very good thing, although dangerous.
They DO understand that their economic policies will impoverish the Country.
Subversives want that, because it fuels their enterprise of conquest, it gives them the weapons that can only be found in chaos and despair.
And that is only the domestic side of the subversive adventure: to that you must add the international side: the subversives want to weaken America, because America has been the dam against which the waves of all the international subversion have broken.
A weak America would mean a great advantage for all the Chavez of the world.
Dear Professor, this administration is not about “policies”. This administration is about war.
That’s why they are allowing the mad mullahs to get the bomb.
The elections of 2010 must be seen as the first step of a long march against the subversion, they must be seen as counterinsurgency.
And so it will be for the elections of 2012.
A poignant statement, Sherab Zangpo.
I believe what MANY people’s stance in this administration is, ‘Yeah, Obama and co. have made horrible decisions of this or that, but HE SAYS that..’.
People are drawn to the message and sadly, allow the actual actions be 2nd potato. To this I say ‘whaaa’?
Honestly, I’d like to see the results of the CBO, Fed and other Government like-minded entities prognosis and actual results of their actions the last 50 years. The number I bet is close to the approval percentage of the 111th Congress..
The same can be said of Bush, Clinton and most pols for that matter. Pity. For the rest of us working schlubs are held accountable for all we do.
Pols live in a ‘relative reality’. Where the next ‘cure’ ‘legislation’ ‘reform’ is a step to utopia. Quite sickening truth be told.
Sherab:
Bingo. Gold Star. Now there are two of us.
Barry and his boomer cohorts have a plan. They have seen that the Dems natural base consists of Government workers and poor people so they are trying to make us all one or the other.
President Obama views the creation of wealth as a species of magic. He believes that if one can recite the right incantations in the right order somehow money will appear. Sort of like if Paul Krugman ran the Hogwarts economics department and had Hary Potter as a student.
This stems from the fact (often described by VDH and others) that President Obama has hardly any life experience outside the insulated realms of elite universities and rotten-borough politics. He reminds of of Julia’s description of Rex Mottram in “Brideshead Revisited”…”He was never really there. Rex wasn’t a real person at all, just a piece of one kept alive in a bottle.”
In fact, at the risk of straining the metaphor, a large chunk of our citizenry (and nearly all of our elite opinion makers) have the same relationship with Barack Obama that Julia had with Rex. They were dazzled by his exoticism and “authenticity” and then found, after the wedding, that there was never anything there to begin with. Well at least Rex knew how to make money and get you out of jail.
Monetizing our debt is something Bernanke swore would not happen. I find it interesting that we haven’t heard a drumbeat of the dangers of this policy. I’ve only heard one conservative TV / radio personality focus on this while the rest are busy patting the republicans on the back and celebrating / analyzing the election results ad naseum. That could also be said of the the republicans including the newbies.
Obama is a third world leader. Internalize that, and virtually all the pieces of the puzle fit into place.
I agree. The large lifestyle he and Michelle enjoy while he says we were in the deepest crisis since the Great Depression, etc. I think he and Michelle remind me of Ceausescu also: flying in meat for the dogs while the people starve. I don’t know how or when, but I don’t think his story will have a happy ending. I wonder what Democrats other than Pat Cadell, Doug Schoen really think of him. I bet it isn’t that glowing, but they stick together in the hopes of enjoying some of the spoils.
Precisely; This stems from his third world intellect and inferiority complex.
Dr. Hanson, your “Riposte” section on today’s blog entry reminded me of the old “Angry Reader” feature on your website, which I now can’t find – does it still exist?
I’d imagine that such an effort must seem pointless after a while, given the no-doubt mountain of angry mail you receive from those who just won’t let go of the statist/entitlement society/equality of results mindset – but I always found that feature highly entertaining.
Please bring it back now and then; while your writings always give me a smile, the “Angry Reader” was the equivalent of the Sunday comics (that is, back when they were actually funny)
I agree with you about Obama, but my attention was caught by your anecdote about Bush. I only recently learned that he had convened meetings like the one you describe.
Bush had excellent credentials for the Presidency, yet he failed. IMHO that failure despite those credentials is one reason why Obama and Palin were and are considered Presidential material.
The more I learn about Bush, the less I understand. (I have not softened on him just because Obama is shaping up as catastrophic.) Bush should be a fascinating subject for future nonpartisan historians and biographers: IMHO even more so than Bill Clinton, despite the latter’s…colorful…personal style and long climb from modest beginnings.
Bush failed? Hmm, maybe. I’m not so sure.
Did he get through his entire agenda, the one he campaigned on? Yes, all except SS reform. Cannot call that a failure.
Did he succeed in putting the Islamists on their heels? Yes. Yes, the war in Iraq was mismanaged initially, but he stood tall and turned it around, despite a Dem majority in ’07.
Did he get the economy back on track after the dot.com bust? Yes. Did it collapse at the end? Yes, but it was not because of him. He importuned Congress to act 20 times. It was their failure.
He was simply successful in implementing his agenda. People voted for a moderate Republican, and got EXACTLY what they voted for. The problem was that it was a moderate Republican government, both in the WH and in Congress.
Only Conservatism works. Even that gets torpedoed by Conservatives who constantly reach for government solutions, when government IS the problem. Career politicians will do this, even Conservative ones.
“The government ought to do something!”
No, it oughtn’t… unless that something is to roll back government.
He gave the elderly “another” entitlement – his free drug plan, costing billions per year, increasing the deficit. Also, his administration ran up the highest deficits of any administration up to Obama’s presidency, although that included $700B for the bank bailout and the Iraq war. In all fairness, as the monies are being payed back by the banks, it should be returned to the Treasury and credited to the Bush administration deficit of 2008, but Obama is not doing that, and using it for his own purpose. Bush’s successful handling of the Iraqi war probably saved us from having two regimes in the Middle East from going nuclear.
He gave the elderly another entitlement – his free drug plan, costing billions per year, increasing the deficit. Also, his administration ran up the highest deficits of any administration up to Obama’s presidency, although that included $700B for the bank bailout and the Iraq war. In all fairness, as the monies are being payed back by the banks, it should be returned to the Treasury and credited to the Bush administration deficit of 2008, but Obama is not doing that, and using it for his own purpose. Bush’s successful handling of the Iraqi war probably saved us from having two regimes in the Middle East from going nuclear.
Since my football team is playing like high school starters, it’s time to read some stimulating discourse.
Dr. Hanson never disappoints.
I’ve been trumpeting the disaster this boy/president would be for three years, and I’ve worn out a couple trumpets.
“Stay Worried”, indeed. What happens when a boy/juvenile gets so much power and then cannot seem to make things work out like he wants? Chaos and tyranny.
And the way things are sizing up in Congress again, chaos and tyranny will be the rule of the day. The Republicans don’t seem to have the mental ammo to deal effectively with these radicals.
And the RACE CARD will be used carte blanche.
This will help the Soetero Regime attain the chaos suitable for it’s ultimate rule. The NBPP will be backed by the AFLCIO, AFSCME, Teachers and Firefighters Unions, and all hell will break loose.
But, this does not concern the Democrat Party or it’s sycophants; It’s their ultimate game plan.
I predict local civil wars, that will be portrayed as TEA Party Activists, and called HOME GROWN TERRORISTS by our own Department of Justice and Homeland Insecurity. Marshall Law WILL be enacted locally to quell these uprisings and further empower the Democrat/Communist Regime to enforce their power over the Citizens ‘For their own good’.
These sick people have demonstrated how dangerous they are, but just watch what happens when they feel ‘cornered’.
Very interesting, tragic times lie ahead.
Mr. Hanson,
Your whole column can be boiled down to one paragrapgh. The first paragrapgh of the “Grows on Trees” section pretty much describes what is wrong with America. People like Obama, Krugman, Friedman, etc etc have never actually run anything. Or worked in the real world where they must get by on their own smarts and hard work.
I have a feeling that there will be serious fights betwen the “smart” people in America, and the people who actually do the work. I feel that a good many Americans are tired of being told what to do, or what they need, by people who reap the benefits of taxes paid by the “unwashed”.
Stop blaming the president.The public cannot get it through their thick skulls that Obama has been taking orders all his political life. Every word out of his mouth is manufactured by his managers. Obama is a well behaved house man like most other workers who want to keep their jobs.
“The Great Beclowning®” (Lots of Polls At End!)
http://www.practicalstate.com/?p=3207
Cheers
Obama is supposed to be a “Constitutional Lawyer” by training, yet he has no clue how to properly interpret the constitution. If Obama can not even comprehend the Constitution how can we expect him to comprehend what principles would for an ailing economy.
Obama was portrayed by the media as a genius, and less than half of the voters bought it(he only won because 5 million Republican voters stayed home), two years later, the rest of the country now knows that he’s simply an empty suit…just what all of us in the right have been saying all along.
“Once again, I confess I do not understand the strange fits of Andrew Sullivan.”
I used to read Andrew Sullivan, but I stopped years ago after realizing that he is mentally unhinged. (He probably has a histrionic and/or narcissistic personality disorder.)
———————-
An individual with histrionic personality disorder exhibits a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attempts to get attention in unusual ways, such as bizarre appearance or speech. With rapidly shifting, shallow emotions, a histrionic can be extremely theatrical, and constantly needs to be the center of attention.
An individual with narcissistic personality disorder exhibits grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. The pathological narcissist tends to be extremely self-absorbed, intolerant of others’ perspectives, insensitive to others’ needs, and indifferent to the effects of his own egocentric behavior.**
** Definitions adapted from: http://www.suite101.com/content/personality-disorders-a29442
“I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
I still have yet to hear any social justice disciple say exactly what this “certain point” is. I guess it’s like swinging blindly at a pinata – we’ll know when we have hit the mark? Whatever it is, I trust our betters will tell us soon so that we might get to work on finally achieving that magical number.
“I still have yet to hear any social justice disciple say exactly what this “certain point” is.”
As is the case with the progressive memes that the rich don’t pay their “fair share”, Keynesian Quantitative Easing and “if we only printed more money” (as called for by one of them on this website) and the host of other disorders on display from our friendly neighborhood Marxists. The problem is that their beliefs are based on feelings, not science or experience.
HAHAHAHA, The “we didnt spend enough” is even called for at 39.
Leftists define making “enough” money as the point that you have a dollar more than they do. They are all about envy.
I think the best person to know when I have made enough money would be myself and my particular circumstances in life. If I have 7 children then I should be able to know when I have made enough for me and my large family what with clothing and other needs!
It is none of Obama’s or anyone else’s business to know when I have made enough especially if you happen to have children with special needs or medical conditions! What if medical bills on a routine basis are $2,900 per month well even if a million dollars before taxes then I still don’t think that is enough…what if I became disabled then the money stops and then the draining of the bank account starts!
Why do I recall that the recession began under the presidency of GWB where all of the jobs were lost and the economy went into a tailspin? At worse, Obama can be accused of not doing enough to restore the economy by not spending enough today. When one looks back at the great depression, it wasn’t tax cuts that got it out of it but a jobs program.
So where were all of these great historians during the disasterous times of the past Republican administration when unwise tax decreases were combined with war spending? MIA?
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.”
Sound like, oh, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio or some other exasperated Republican stalwart lamenting proposals to spend our way out of the recession?
Listen again:
“I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.”
Sound more like a liberal Democrat pushing job creation — say, Harlem’s Rep. Charlie Rangel?
What about this:
“I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!”
Surely this must be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or another leading Democrat denouncing President Bush’s economic policies.
Wrong. Wrong. And wrong again.
The words are those of none other than Henry Morgenthau Jr. — close friend, lunch companion, loyal secretary of the Treasury to President Franklin D. Roosevelt — and key architect of FDR’s New Deal.
The date: May 9, 1939. The setting: Morgenthau’s appearance in Washington before less influential Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Morgenthau made this “startling confession,” as historian Burton W. Folsom Jr. calls it, during the seventh year of FDR’s New Deal programs to combat the rampant unemployment of the Great Depression.
“In these words, Morgenthau summarized a decade of disaster, especially during the years Roosevelt was in power. Indeed average unemployment for the whole year in 1939 would be higher than that in 1931, the year before Roosevelt captured the presidency from Herbert Hoover,” Folsom writes in his new book, “New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.”
Entire post clipped from http://blog.heritage.org/2009/01/14/were-spending-more-than-ever-and-it-doesnt-work/
The groupthink that oozes from these responses …
The only capitalism that ever worked was well regulated, or so called, managed capitalism. This managed capitalism was dismantled starting with Ronald R and Margaret T, with consequences that everyone may now ponder. The economy will not improve, and in fact will follow the soviet union way, until runaway finance is caged. Obama got repudiated, because he kissed the rear end of that finance, and was called a socialist in as a thank you. Republicans superficially benefited from that repudiation, but the benefit will bot last long.
Yeah the 70′s were great and the 80′s, 90′s, and most of the 2000′s sucked. By the way, weren’t Chris Dodd and Barney Frank in charge of “managing” our capitalism since 2006? Looks like the shareholders are ready for new “management”.
MF, your post is and should be highly instructive to all who read this blog. You have opened your mouth and let slip the meme that the left will be using going forward.
You are asserting that because a handful of large financial firms got in bed with government and flaunted poorly desinged and enforced regulations that all businesses must be microregulated in order to have a good and working economy.
Does that assertion make any sense to anyone? What is the logical justification for transmogrifying the mistakes of a few businesses in a particular industry into a general statment about all businesses everywhere?
Everyone on the center/right must be prepared to refute this assertion in the coming months, as it will be trotted out with great frequency.
It is surprising that no attention is paid, even now, to the one period in Obama’s past when he was entrusted with a large sum of money (over $100,000,000) to spread around for “social” improvement, in that case it was just the Chicago public school system.
The final report evaluating the program’s performance during Obama’s board term for spending the Annenburg grant money was dismal, especially considering the huge amount that was distributed. The conclusion: there was no discernable improvement in school systems that received program grants from Obama’s board of directors.
Maybe he just didn’t have enough money given to him to redistribute, and the people evaluating his performance were to dumb to understand that he brilliantly managed to avoid even worse conditions in the school system.
Silly you, JR.
You aren’t considering how much WORSE it would have been if the esteemed Mr. Obama hadn’t so wisely spread those paltry millions around.
If only we could count the young lives saved because of our hero. Verily, he saved the planet with his wisdom and generosity.
In the epic chronicle of Chinese tragedy “Mao The Unkown Story” (everyone should read it), its authors, Jung Chahng and Jon Halliday describe the demonic joy Mao used to draw from destruction he wrought on his own country.
They desrcibe how Mao used to get extatic when watching people (even his own supporters) being tortured, beated, burried alive…
And when he did’t have the opportunity to watch such a barbarism himself, he would order to have those scenes filmed in order to watch them or being reported with details.
By his own admission he liked the people being mistreadted, humiliated, murdered.
In fact, he planned to murder at list half of the Chinese population – some 300 million of them.
He managed to get rid of only 70 million.
What makes you My American Friends keep deluding yourself with the belief that OBAMA is not such a kind of the DEMON?
After all, all his actions speaks for themselves that his strategic aim is to destroy AMERICA.
How many peopple will die in a civil war that will inevitably errupt in the divided and impoverished America?
Millions upon millions!
He doesn’t even care for the future of his own children as they shall live in the world where they will be less prosperous, less free, with much lesser chances of succes.
Deep in shame as their father will be despised and hated FOREVER. Perhaps even under different names.
It is beyong ridicule to believe that Obam is some kind of misguided dreamer as Bill O”Reilly once described him.
He is certainly the ENEMY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE as Rush Limbauch and Sarah Palin describe him.
…well yes
It’s not that I don’t think he wouldn’t take great pleasure in being the next Mao, it’s that I don’t think he’s competent enough to do it. By the time he figures out that the American people really have understood and rejected him, he’ll be out of office.
Bogdan, you understand exactly what sort of monsters we are dealing with in the US today. I wrote an essay on this subject that you might find interesting, an essay that is in the process of being re-written as a book.
Good Essay, but a little depressing.
Thanks Ward. I’ve just read your essay. Beautiful! I sincerely wish you a succes with your book.
I’ve had my best years wasted while living uder the boot and whip of the communo-fascist regime. I know its very nature. Therefore, I have no ilusion about the mind (atavistic, parasitic, degenerate, vandal-like destructive, inhumane) of those who work tirelessly to impose totalitarianism on the people.
if a cat’s got nine lives, how many times does it bounce?
how many times will the dead cat bounce?
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6498/deadcatsbouncing.gif
I should say that Mr Hanson underestimates President Obama, as does most of the media and pundits. Nevertheless clear signals are there for all to see. Probably its just that the reality seems to far fetched.
For example, as we speak the president is opening free trade with India. Thinks what this means to the US. Recall that Bill Clinton gave China favored nation trading status. China pegged the Yuan to the Dollar and proceeded to deluge America with cheap goods made by millions of cheap laborers. President Obama is now giving India the equivalent of favored nation trading status so that India too can flood America with cheap products. Once India has become a safe platform for foreign businesses to operate from and from which to sell goods to America, more US businesses will locate there and more American jobs will be lost.
Free trade is a sacred cow with some in this country. But when the trade deficit is draining our life blood, it seems that view ought to be reexamined. Some are rightfully saying that a tax should be put on Chinese imports so that American manufacturers have a chance to compete with low paid Chinese workers.
Why would President Obama want to increase the trade deficit and set up an international environment where even more US jobs flow out to the 3 rd world? The only answer has to be that he wants to redistribute wealth from Western counties to developing countries, and if further impoverishment of America is the result, so be it. Or perhaps, all the better.
President Obama is an ideologue with hubris. He probably cares little that his party lost so many seats in Congress, so many governorships, and so many state legislatures. His goal is, as he openly told us, to fundamentally transform America. Why would anyone think Mr. Obama cares about anything but his agenda given that he now travels like a king spending $2 million a day while unemployment in America is near 10 percent?
Remember that Obama’s closest advisors are or were self-described Marxists and communists. These czars and czarinas include Ron Bloom, Kenneth Feinberg, John Holdren, and Anita Dunn. Google each of these persons and discover for yourself their communist/Marxist views. The president will continue his work outside the Constitution nationalizing private businesses and confiscating private property. The evidence is that Mr. Obama’s goal is to install, not mere benign European style socialism, but rather a soft (non-military) Marxist/ Leninist version. Let us not forget that Obama studied most of his life under Marxists, starting when he was a teenager under the influence of the American Marxist Frank Marshall Davis, then it appears as a college student under Marxist Professor Clowen, then communing with Rev Wright and communist terrorists Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn. A man with Obama’s background does not change. He is not one who will or can sit down with Republicans or anyone else to consider traditional American values.
How this man became a US president will be the subject of wonder for generations of historians. For the present, he remains an enigma to most Americans. Keep this in mind: Mr. Obama is a focused, highly intelligent, if inexperienced, stealthy planner hardwired for conversion of America to a totalitarian centrally controlled state.
And 45% of the public could care less.
Free trade is easily good for our country if we didn’t at the same time regulate and demonize our own industries. 42,000 factories have closed in the US since 2001.
The EPA alone drives many businesses overseas. Then there is the onerous tax laws and corporate income tax. Then the locals kick in, as here in So California, where business after business has simply closed its doors. They didn’t relocate overseas. They simply went out of business because the sales tax is at 9.75%; the tax on business is sky high; the tax (“license”) to go into business is sky high; the minimum wage you have to pay a kid doing essentially nothing (say, taking tickets at a theater entrance) is $8 per hour. How many kids are you going to employ at that rate?
If we freed American business, we would easily compete with the likes of China or India.
But American business is considered the golden goose to tax forever…unless you’re Government Motors, which will get a tax holiday on $45 billion so their bottom line looks good.
Taxes destroy business. We are destroying American business.
Our corporate tax rates at 39% are second only to Japan at 40%, the highest in the world. In Pennsylvania, there is an additional tax rate of 9%, which makes doing business in Pennsylvania very expensive for any business. No wonder many companies are opening operations in China and India. We should be cutting taxes instead. And increasing taxes on imports is never a good idea because you get retaliation. Free trade always works better.
It’s a bit hard to believe American economic salvation will come from a country where people defecate in the street, or where they clean up the dead homeless each morning with front-end loaders.
The India trip is merely an elaborate stunt (bolstered by the usual assortment of empty, preposterously optimistic whoppers) to distract attention from the utter repudiation that occurred last Tuesday.
All of you are hypocrites! Let see, how many of the recent Presidents were business savy? W- well he did own a baseball team but he never “failed” at anything in business as far as we know. Clinton- no business experience. Bush Sr, no business experience. Reagan, no business experience, he ran a union, made movies, and was Governor. Carter, I think he did own a peanut farm but probably had others doing the business end of things. Nixon, no business experience.
So we see from history that the men that occupied the Oval Office since 1972 collectively had very little business experience and obviously never failed at business. BUT you lament and point fingers at President Obama because his experience was as a professor and elected office!!!!
Wow, talking about throwing stink bombs..when will you all get over the fact that Obama is black and was duly elected President!
Apparently we have here a racist….since no one else has brought race up as an issue. I think it’s highly insulting to suggest that obama’s foolishness, arrogance, ignorance, imperious manners and clueless decisions are due to his race. How dare you.
How restrained of you to wait until the last sentence to get to your point.
`” W- well he did own a baseball team but he never “failed” at anything in business as far as we know”
You give him too much credit. He failed at EVERYTHING he did in business.
Yes, GWB failed miserably as an oil man.
Gw is a good, decent and honorable man. He was the right man in the right place at the right time when terorists attacked our country, and he kepr your sorry ass safe for eight years. Your pettiness and the pettiness of other ingrates are despicable.
Ham
Let me destroy your argument for you. George W Bush owned and ran a business which was the Texas Ranger team and have some experience running an oil company or two, Clinton may not own a business, but he was the Governor of Arkansas prior to becoming President and that by itself is running a business, state business in particular. Bush Sr., he had business experience, he started his own company in the early fifties and co-founded another one, three years later before going to politics in the sixties. Also, he ran the CIA under the Ford administration. How about Carter, he was a successful peanut farmer. Richard Nixon was a practicing lawyer prior to WWII. Ronald Reagan, wasn’t he elected several times as SAG president in the forties and fifties. Being a SAG president meant he not only had leadership savvy, but also an acute business acumen to help run the Actors guild during his multiple terms.
President Obama have nothing, no leadership skills and no managerial skills. He does not know how to triangulate like President Clinton, he does not have the mental toughness of George W Bush. Hell, he does not have the charisma of Reagan when things are rough. He does not have the diplomatic skills of Bush the elder. What he have are the worse traits of both Carter and Nixon and none of their virtues. Narcissistic, paranoid, indecisive, mentally weak, race baiter, a moral and intellectual coward and oh yeah, lazy .
If Obama is white, he would not have been elected president. He was elected President of the United States because he is black, not because he was competent or able.
There it is again! Those who oppose Obama’s polcies do so because they are racists, racists, racists!!! Game, set and match. Everyone can go home now. All has been explained.
That cheap (and totally gnorant) canard has been effectively refuted by so many others that piling on seems unnecessary. However your point about presidential “business experience” bears examination. Only two U.S. Presidents since 1900 had substantial experience operating their own businesses. (I’m not counting the Bushes.) These would be Warren G. Harding who published a small-town newspaper and Harry S. Truman who ran a haberdashers store which went bankrupt. The presidency has been dominated by (wait for it) lawyers since Andrew Jackson’s day. (Jackson was a plantation owner, lawyer, horse-trader and slave-trader. Do the Democrats still hold the annual “Jefferson-Jackson Dinner”?) The only “pure businessman” to run for President from a major party was Wendell Willkie in 1940. You are right in pointing out that few presidents have been businessmen. We had a chance to elect a businessWOMAN as governor of California but the old-hat professional politician won.
Its fairer to say that Republicans and conservatives better understand (and are more sympathetic with) the central role of private enterprise in wealth-creation. This is also inextricably linked to the concept of private freedom. Mr. Obama not only has little sympathy with private enterprise but also seems less than completely sold on the idea of private freedoms. Much of this stems from the fact that he has been raised in a near-hermetically sealed enviroment since boyhood. His world has been one of private secondary school, college, law school and “public service” in the rotten boroughs of Chicago politics. He has been cossetted and pampered by academic and political elites nearly all his adult life. And none of the people who have performed this pampering have themselves any sympathy with or experience in business. In the case of Ayers and Dohrn, quite the opposite. The Bushes, Ronald Reagan and even Jimmy Carter had acquired genuine world experiences outside of the coccoon of politics and “community organizing.” The Clintons enjoyed the warmest of relations with businessmen (such as those running the Tyson chicken operation) before Bill made it to the White House. Almost every day Mr. Obama provides further proof that he is not only disconnected from the idea of private enterprise but also disconnected from most of us. Underneath the smooth baritone voice and the fabulous abs is Gertrude Steins famous description of Oakland – “There is no there there.”
You are presented with the windmill of of economic criticism but see the dragon of racism. You are Don Quixote. You are lost fighting the battles of the past.
Eisenhower sent troops into little Rock in 1957 or 53 years ago.
Ham, you are a real turkey.
Are you kidding? These other presidents understood business and economics. Obama does not. It is as simple as that.
It isn’t that he never ran a business.
It is that he has never held a real job outside of academia, politics and a law career in which crony politicians and Chitown Machine members funneled rich people to him… and Tony Rezko got him set up with that ‘job’ at a law firm so that Obama could handle his legal problems. If Obama had dug ditches, tended bar, or just worked his way through college that would at least give him life experience to earning a living. W didn’t feel entitled to be a good businessman and failed. Clinton knew he had to keep his butt going to keep things running for him, that it was not an entitlement for him to be where he was. HW Bush was a fighter/bomber pilot in WWII. Reagan was an actor. Carter served on a nuclear sub. If you think those are lackluster consider that Obama feels entitled to the status and lifestyle he has because much of it has been handed to him throughout his life.
That’s the problem.
You have your facts wrong. Bush 41 moved to West Texas after he graduated college and became a very successful oilman, after starting as a sales clerk with Dresser. Bush 43 was less successful in the sane industry, but he started as a landman and went on to start several exploration companies, having to sell out after the big bust of ’84. So they both have rather extensive experience in the business world, as well as military experience.
And in any case, playing the race card disqualifies you from serious discussion.
I have a solution. Let’s make Obama resign.
letsmakeobamaresign.blogspot.com
The missing item is human motivation. Keyenesians and Intellectuals don’t understand human motivation and distrust anything that cannot be controlled or understood.
Many of us who have real jobs and work with real teams of real people in the real world designing and making real things see several obvious lessons about life that academia still don’t understand. We know for example that while achievements are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, that 1% is awfully important and is never always a sure thing. But we also know that without that 99% perspiration, success is extremely unlikely.
And teams that are not motivated will not perform. Keynesians in academia don’t understand this.
Up till today, economists cannot model that creative spark, or predict why IBM’s mainframes are replaced by PCs and why Microsoft and Intel took over computerland. Neither can they model why William Shockley started Silicon Valley but would not build a successful company.
Neither could economic models predict Edison’s light bulb.
And yet, without sufficient human motivation, all of these advances that are milestones in american innovations would not occur. This is the real disaster of an economy that rewards failures and punishes success.
A famous Margaret Thatcher ‘PM question time’ in the House of Commons is here in place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw
Essential line: “He [Labour MP] will rather the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich; that is the liberal policy”.
No, non sensei, it was not politically incorrect. Just incoherent.
The President may have taken office during an economic downturn but he added spending to his predecessor’s last budget and set a post WW II spending record as a % of GDP. The economy didn’t improve so we added spending in his first budget year (2nd year in office), set another new spending record and we still lost jobs. The guy adds spending in his 2nd budget year as well. Two years in he still blames things on the situation he inherited being worse than he perceived.
We need a real conservative like Ronald Reagan. Now there was a president who knew how to get an economy restarted.
For those of you who don’t know your history, the big spending president who set three straight post WW II spending records WAS President Ronald Reagan. In practice, Reagan was a Keynesian.
Since the Great Depression, we have NEVER gotten out of a deep recession without major deficit spending UNTIL ALL THE LOST JOBS ARE RECOVERED. We lost 2.7 million private sector jobs in the 1981-1982 downturn. To combat this, Reagan set spending records in FY 1981, FY 1982 and again in FY 1983. By keeping fiscal stimulus going until we had recovered the lost jobs in 1983, we had a good recovery. In fact, spending did not go below FY 1981 levels until FY 1987, well into the recovery.
By contrast, we lost 8.4 million private sector jobs in the recent downturn, three times the lost jobs in the 1980′s. At a budget cost in lost income and payroll tax revenue plus increased spending of $54 billion PER YEAR for each one million lost jobs, the recession will negatively impact the budget until the jobs are recovered. We set a new spending record in FY 2009, President Bush’s last budget year. TARP and the lost jobs were the major factors in this spending increase, although there was $100 billion of ARRA stimulus spending in FY 2009–out of $3.5 trillion total spending. We went from losing over 500,000 jobs for seven straight months, incuding 806,000 private sector jobs in January 2009 alone, to adding private sector jobs every month in 2010. Unfortunately, we did not keep our foot on the fiscal stimulus gas pedal. We actually CUT SPENDING in FY 2010, albeit not by very much. We also raised uncertainty by cutting off extended unemployment benefits three times in 2010. We were not able to maintain the recovery momentum when hit with the European debt issues and the Gulf oil spill. The result is that the recovery sputtered.
The recovery appears to be picking up steam again. But I am fearful that the austerity push will stop it again. Now is not the time to cut spending. Look what austerity is doing for Ireland this week. Be like Reagan and keep the fiscal stimulus going until all the jobs are recovered.
That does not mean we shouldn’t be taking steps now to address our medium to long term structural deficit issues. We should. Like Reagan, we should gradually raise the age for full Social Security benefits. This time let’s index it to life expectancy so we don’t have to wait for the next crisis to adjust it again. We should also cut back military spending as we wind down the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, although we will be paying increased veterans costs for generations to treat our wounded soldiers and Marines.
I think we should eliminate the Department of Agriculture and all the wasteful crop subsidies and import restrictions, especially the ethanol program. A few surviving programs like crop insurance can be transferred to the Department of Commerce, while assistance programs like food stamps can be incorprated into HHS.
In addition to spending cuts, we will need to increase taxes to get revenues back up to 19-20% of GDP levels. Paul Ryan recognizes this in his Roadmap, even if his specific tax proposals don’t get us there.
I am anxious to see what other recommendations are made by the bi-partisan commission currently looking at this issue. It will be rough sailing in the next few years tryihg to address the structural deficit without causing a double dip recession. I hope we are up to the task.
It’s a different situation today:
1. Tax threats and uncertainties about the new health “reform” legislation.
2. Tax threats and uncertainties about possible cap and trade legislation.
3. Uncertainties about whether the Bush tax cuts will be extended.
4. Uncertainties about additional taxes on the “rich” (businesses) by the Democratic Party-controlled Congress, i.e., class war.
5. Effect of “card check” legislation on the business climate.
Above is the typical Democrat anti-business agenda. All of the items above are of concern to businesses, so they are hoarding their cash, not investing in improvements or expansion, i.e., not hiring and will not hire until certain of future expenditures. Obama’s stimulus bills were nothing more than earmarks and paybacks to his supporters, the unions, state governments, ACORN, subsidies to green manufacturers, social programs, etc. These people, on the receiving end of the Democratic Party’s largess, are also not spending, but paying back debt and saving in case of future layoffs. And what they are spending is probably being spent at Wal-Mart on low-priced Chinese and Indian goods. There is also evidence and data that extensions of unemployment benefits actually keep people from looking for work. What the Democrats need to do is improve the business climate, not threaten it with additional taxes.
is your last name Marx, Karl ??
I would debate the points if you weren’t obviously down the socialist path. There was nothing reasonable about your points.
I don’t think there is any possibility to have a reasonable debate with you.
So I will just satisfy myself with calling you an idiot. Which you are.
Karl wrote:
Since the Great Depression, we have NEVER gotten out of a deep recession without major deficit spending . . .
Karl has been drinking the Keynesian cool-aid, but he has unwittingly hit on a truth.
Yes, it is true that beginning with the Great Depression, virtually every single recession that has occurred has seen government attempt to address the problem with deficit spending. The trouble is, there is absolutely no data or evidence to suggest that this deficit spending did anything to help “stimulate” the economy.
Deficit spending didn’t work for Hoover, it didn’t work for Roosevelt, it didn’t work for the Japanese all through the 1990s, and it isn’t working for Obama now.
What’s more, Karl’s claim above brings up another interesting point. Prior to the Great Depression, the U.S. economy experienced a number of recessions and depressions — all of which were resolved quickly without any government “simulus” at all!
Take, for example, the Depression that occurred in 1920 that saw unemployment go over 11%. That depression was resolved by the market, with no government help at all, in about 1 year. By 1921, the unemployment rate was down to 6% and continued falling thereafter.
So the available evidence we have is that government stimulus does not work — whereas government staying the hell out of the economy works just fine.
“All of you are hypocrites!”
I try not to be.
For example: I loathe, despise and revile all liberals/Democrats and urge everyone I know to do likewise.
I’m worried Obama will spend another $200 million per day to travel around the world. Let’s keep the truth tellers on this one. Rush? Sean? Fox? Drudge? (who I actually met once. Very cool. Smelled of eggs. Not quite sure what that was all about.) We’re counting on you to keep em honest and not let their echo chamber spew unfounded nonsense.
Essential vdh.
It would not be possible to over or underestimate Barack Hussein Obama (BHO). He is a useful idiot. He is a product of AA and PC that is now warping productive human development in America. Once this anti American progressive, liberal, Marxist agenda reaches its objectives of producing more BHO’s America will be a nation of incompetent fools and parasitic victims. All needing a handout all needing powerful leadership until it self destructs as it will have to—no where in the world throughout history his this ideology been sustainable for any length of time.
There is no way to even evaluate what BHO knows or understands of the world about him and the damage he is doing to America. He is a product of the liberal progressive agenda that is now being pushed by the the Teachers, SEIU and AWA Unions, their communist affiliates and associated Anarchist fringe groups. His abilities do not seem to allow him to discern the difference between the revolutionary Utopian language of Marxist communist social transformation and its parasitic destructive nature and this is the same transformation that sets his agenda for America.
The task at hand for America and conservative Americans now is to find true American leadership to rid America of the BHO cultists and useful idiots that have been conditioned anti American Marxists over the last 75 years. If we don’t or can’t secure that leadership the high water mark of America and human history will disappear from the face of the earth.
So has Obama’s stated goal to “spread the wealth around” actually spread the wealth?
Tell me, Obama supporters, are you better off financially after two years of his policies? Has he spread wealth to you?
Obama is a central planner. It gives him more satisfaction to order GM to make electric cars than cutting regulations and letting others solve problems.
“Apparently, the president is unaware that after some 2,500 years of both experience with and abstract thought about Western national economies, we know that a free, private sector increases the general wealth of a nation, while a statist redistributive state results in a general impoverishment of the population.”
As acute an observer of the History that VDH is, in this case of Obama and the Left in general, he is so far off the mark that it is alarmingly astonishing. The Leftist leaders and ‘intellectuals’ understand *beyond any doubt* that what they want to load on the back of humanity is destructive. But they insist on it, precisely because it is destructive. A broken dispirited masses are more easily enslaved than content, prosperous, and happy masses. And the real business of the Left is the enslavement of masses—and larger the better. So this whole drama about obama ‘foolishly’ or ‘naively’ allegedly ignoring 2500 years of historical experience of mankind vis a vis the Left vs. a Free Populace quite a naive nonsense on the part any reasonable average observer of history, and truly, mindbogglingly perplexing when coming from a bona fide scholar of history.
And unless we reverse this large scale error and recognize the Left (and Obama) for what they are, there is no effective way of combating it. Because it always gives the Leftists an excuse—that of being ‘previously deluded’, and then ‘reformed’. Except that we have to go through that charade every five years with some country or other falling for that ruse.
David Horowitz, who knows intimately the true goals of the left, said it best: “Liberals are destroyers. Conservatives are creators.”
But they insist on it, precisely because it is destructive. A broken dispirited masses are more easily enslaved than content, prosperous, and happy masses. And the real business of the Left is the enslavement of masses—and larger the better. So this whole drama about obama ‘foolishly’ or ‘naively’ allegedly ignoring 2500 years of historical experience of mankind vis a vis the Left vs. a Free Populace quite a naive nonsense on the part any reasonable average observer of history, and truly, mindbogglingly perplexing when coming from a bona fide scholar of history.
You’ve touched upon something that has intrigued me for some time. First of all, your premise is correct: the Left has actviely been engaged in behavior, ideas and policies destructive to our Republic for some time now. It’s a pedigree of ideas and an axis of thought that can be followed from Machiavelli through Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Georges Sorel, Saul Alinsky and the Cloward-Piven duo. That is, you cannot rule a free and prosperous people. The operating principle is as Machiavelli laid out so long ago:
This precisely what what is happening, and what has been happening for some time now. By every measure of reason, this regime is working to destroy our republic for their own ends. And what is that end? It is as you’ve described: the acquisition and exercise of absolute power. Pure, murderous power. Power for it’s own sake. The power to control and to harm others without consequence. George Orwell, who understood this side of the Left all too well, wrote in his classic 1984:
And so you have it. But why the curious blindness given to this undeniable aspect of human nature? Why do so many scholars – who should know better – such as Dr. Hanson and Lee Harris (for both of whom I have profound respect) either ignore or dance around this subject? Is it because it is too monstrous to contemplate?
If that premise is true, it’s not hard to understand the reluctance: look at the slaughter, atrocity and abomination perpetrated by the last 150 years’ totalitarian monsters. How can one make sense of so much killing, such utter and profound cruelty? How can one acknowledge that that reality is part of our history and that it is inextricably linked to our human nature, our human condition? Human beings did these things. human beings treated other human beings as objects, as animals, as things, as targets for their own monstrosity and savagery.
Perhaps there’s another reason behind the reluctance to acknowledge this historical truth: the realization that monstrous acts are required to deal with monsters. And that precisely what we must face if we wish to preserve Western civilization from our internal enemies – mindless utopians and will-to-power driven serial nihilists – and from the threat that the abomination that is Islam poses today.
None of us have a Get Out of History Free card. We ignore the lessons of history at our peril. 2000 years or so ago, Titus Livy, in the introduction to his monumental history of Rome remarked that his purpose in writing was “to trace the progress of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them.”
The people of Rome could do neither and night fell in the Western world for a thousand years.
Whoever can understand my name can also understand what’s in the mind (aasuming he’s got one) of the guy who (at present) goes by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.
This article is based on the premise that the President wants the economy to do well, but doesn’t understand it.
What if he does not want the economy to do well?
Nothing to do with color and everything to do with the content of his character. People are seeing they’ve been duped and don’t like it. People did not expect to have America turned in to a failed socialist european country.
Let’s see: A community organizer, reads a teleprompter well and no one really knows where he comes from…..pretty much sums it up. Any true accomplishment on his own is lacking. Everyone can see he was not held to the same standards or scrutiny as other presidents.
His puppetmasters have pulled his strings for a long time. They’ve always cleared his path and financed this nightmare America is going through. The handlers knew that an uninformed childish electorate could easily be awed. Left to his own devices where might he be today?
Maybe a community organizer.
The truth will eventually come out.
Texas vs California? Texas has a 25 billion budget hole and 8% unemployment. They are not in good shape and not a good example. They are doing better than California because Texas has a strong health care sector and energy sector. Both industries are heavily subsidized by the Federal Govt. They are not fiscally responsible though as evidenced by their huge budget deficit.
Also, the choices aren’t capitalism or socialism. We have mixed both philosophies throughout the 20th century and moving away from the socialist components have actually slowed growth as it has resulted in enormous income inequality which is the primary drag on economic growth.
Jerry? Huh? Say what? Moving away from the socialist components has slowed growth? Earth to Mars, Jerry, are you there?….
This is a great column, with perfectly articulated positions on the economic behavior of people, success and failure of historical political/economic scenarios. And Jerry, tell me, by what decree do you determine that “income inequality” is at it’s correct level? Do you have a magic tablet that tells you the correct multiplier for CEO vs. mailroom guy? Is that up to you, or to some left leaning columnist in the MSM? Hoe bout this, chief? All things are flexible, all things evolve. If CEO pay is distorted, it is up to the board of directors, via the shareholders, to do something about it. It’s not up to Barack Obama. I don’t see him limiting the pay of pro athletes, or movie stars, do I? Maybe you should worry a little less about what someone else has, whether Mark Zuckerberg “deserves” his money or not, and worry a little bit more about YOURSELF, and how you can take personal responsibility for doing better.
And if you think California is fiscally fine, the same as Texas, I probably just wasted my breath…..
More than half of all jobs being created in the US are being created in Texas. Yes, more than half. More jobs are being created in Texas than in all the other states combined.
Job creation is kind of a important right now. Obama should be hanging out in Texas studying what’s happening here, but he prefers the Michigan/California economic model.
the greater problem is this clown still has the support of far too many people.
a viable society would have already tarred and feathered him and sent him packing.
Foreign Policy 101:
“The impression on the Indian side is every time you meet him, he talks about Gandhi,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express, a leading English-language newspaper, adding that the repeated references struck some officials as platitudinous. (NYT)
Platitudinous would be a euphemism for something akin to profound ignorance. Obama is not extolling Ghandi to his Indian hosts in order to ingratiate himself. He’s not being patronizing or condescending. Ghandi is simply the only Indian leader he knows.
After Mumbai, he’s off to New Dehli to get a sandwich.
would be clever if it wasn’t true
Col. Gibson may only be one congressman, but he represents hope in a real way.
Congratulations to Col. Chris Gibson for winning New York’s 20th Congressional District.
It’s very encouraging to know that the majority can recognize an exceptional individual, and most importantly, choose that individual.
Even from up here in the Great White North, this news warms up a chilly November morning.
I think the economy will improve in the next two years, if only marginally just because of cycles. With the election, owners, investors, etc., will at least know that something wildly harmful to them will not get past the house. With every vote/veto of HC from the house, more dems are signing their death warrant for 2012.
As for Obama’s understanding of the economy? He doesn’t. After the passing of his mother he was raised by his grandparents. Even Obama says that for parts of his and mother’s life, they were on some type of social program. It is my belief that he views this not as a “helping hand while they struggled to climb the ladder” but more of, that’s what government is there for. And while that may be part of government, he views this as their primary purpose, not a helping hand. Second, his enrollment in one of Hawaii’s top prep schools, while his mother worked at a bank and was “just another typical white person” shows his leaning that fat-cat bankers put their kids in top prep schools and that was good for him so why not subject thier income to everyone for the same opportunity.
His enrollment in Occidental, Columbia, Harvard, which he has not released how he paid for this, one can assume someone else did or was thru grants, admissions, etc. Again, somebody else’s money and that’s what government is there for. As a “lecturer,” community activist, grant(s) from Annenburgh (with no real cost/benefit – did this work? analysis), and then into politics, is another example of government payroll for which he does not understand. It is as though he believes “money just appears” for these type of endeavors.
And that is the most troubling part. He may not like the entreupreners, business owners, bankers, or whoever. He’s entitled to like whoever he chooses. It is rather his total cluelessness of business. I haven’t read his books, but I don’t recall anything where he states something about a lemonade stand, tossing the local paper afterschool, waiting tables working thru college or anything of the sort. His entire life has been “fitting into groups” and having done so, has never really had any opposition to his beliefs because he chose which groups to try to fit into. He’s not going to go all Allan West on us and try to fit into the CBC. We’ve all had the angry customer as a waiter or checkout hand. The confused customer regarding a raise in our prices. The employee who didn’t get a big raise or promotion that we’ve had to confront. Worked for someone who we may not invite to our birthday party, but nonetheless had to work with cohesively within the confines of employment in order to keep our job.
Even his first loss to the Illinois legislature to Bobby Ross ( I think that was his name), he viewed it (and from what I’ve read) as “they weren’t really that far apart on ideas or ideology, but that Obama just didn’t sell himself well enough.” With all this pomp & circumstance so far in his term, can you imagine what his security detail will be after his presidency? His travel expenses? He will view himself as a continued savior of the world and not having a clue about where money comes from for these types of endeavors, he’ll burn thru it faster and faster. And not having to supply it himself, but the various dignitaries, foreign countries, cronies, etc., it will just re-enforce his belief that, this is what government should do. . . not only for him but for everyone.
VDH wrote, “why the public restroom is treated differently from its counterpart at home”. One of the ultimate nanny states, Singapore, has signs in it’s rapid transit washrooms urging users to treat this washroom like their one at home.
Before Kool-Aid drinkers rant erroneously about hypocrites, they should try some self-education first, as to facts. HAM, try Google for starters, it’s your friend:
From Wikipedia – ‘Zapata Oil, founded in 1953 by future-U.S. President George H. W. Bush,… now Pennzoil!’
W. Bush co-owned an oil exploration company, before the Tx Rangers.
Ronald Reagan was a liberal Dem in the 40′s who saw the light because of ruthless Commie/Union “bomb-throwing organizers” in Hollywood, became the voice of Conservatism in the ’60s (thanks GE) and a highly successful Republican Gov of CA.
Big Fail on your idiotic claim, and none of these X-presidents, except perhaps for that constant whiner, Dhimmi Carter, appointed Cabinet members or Czars that were admitted or known Marxists, Commies, Maoists, Socialist, etc.. “Calling Van Jones”….
Now, what lemon-Aid stand did O run?
He understands it and DESIRES it.
Obama believe the US needs to be made to share the world’s poverty. It’s in EVERY element of his history.
A wake up call to the President and members of Congress
Posted on November 7, 2010 by dancingczars| 1 Comment
As concerned American citizens we are deeply worried about the safety and security of our country. (proposed legislation)
We believe that a dire security crisis is posed by the misuse of the Religious Freedoms afforded by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America by organizations and/or groups of individuals as a cover and concealment for the conduct of terrorism, sedition against the United States and other crimes against humanity.
We further believe that it is a clear violation of the natural laws upon which our Nation is formed to consider such barbaric activities as a Religion or any kind of Religious Practice the exercise of which is entitled to any kind of preference or protection. Accordingly, we are calling you our elected official to create legislative action and bring to congress the following (of course your variation)
“”Within The United States of America, no organization, association, society or other group of individuals shall be considered to be a religion, or a religious organization, for any purpose whatsoever if it directly or indirectly advocates, promotes, endorses, encourages, sponsors, instructs, demonstrates, recruits for, trains for, or otherwise supports ANY of the following:
1. Any system of laws for governance of the people as superior to the Constitution of the United States of America, or that is, in whole or material part, in direct conflict therewith;
2. Terrorism against the United States of America or its citizens;
3. Any organization that has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States of America.
4. Any system of laws that decriminalizes violence against women, or that diminishes the right of free speech and belief;
5. That there is, or should be, no separation between religion and government;
6. That any religion is superior to any other religion;
7. That any person is of lesser or superior value to any other person based on race, gender, national origin or religious belief;
8. That slavery is justified, or that any person must be subservient or subjugated to any other person based on race, gender, national origin, or religious belief;
9. That any person or persons should be exterminated based on their race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, religious belief or former religious belief; or
10. Barbaric and inhuman punishment for petty crimes, and other cruel and unusual punishment.”
This legislation was put forth by friends and an attorney; a great deal of thought went into not mentioning Islam or Muslims for politically correct cover. Please get back to me at your earliest convenience; I’m Jim Campbell, member http://www.concernedamericancitizens.org
Texas will close its budget hole. It does so every few years. The democrats get excited and pump up the spending. Then the Republicans have to go in and cut. Then they get articles about being heartless. It goes with the territory. Texas’ strong health care sector isn’t particularly well- subsidized. New York’s is. Texas is the de facto health department for northern Mexico. And, well, if you’re pregnant and can walk, I’d like to point out that the clerks at the hospital- bi-lingual, hispanic, in other words- sympathetic, will find a way for you to have your child, have your child get on social services, etc etc etc. It might not be the policy of the (anglo)white person running the hospital, but the clerks– that’s a few thousand that disappear- can’t find X, Y, or Z….they “went back to Mexico” or are “unemployed.” Texas has a diversified economy. Texas blew up on the last oil bust. Deliberately, the city’s started sponsoring other industries. Our mayors say good things about business, about business people. And, frankly, “too rich” happens here, thank goodness. Part of that is a “vibrant civil culture” bka churches. It’s hard to resent the person kneeling next to you, at the altar rail.
And 8% unemployment? have you seen michigan’s?
what gives me the willies is that I walk by people talking to the pastor and they say ” I could start a company. I have the idea and the core group, but wow…..” that’s not a good feeling.
I wonder how many functionally illiterate people O can get to the polls in two years. I wonder if anyone will notice that unions have loaned out their people to his campaign. They did last time.
Nobel Prize, not Noble. I’m surprised that Dr. Hanson would make such an error.
“his and his wife’s various speeches relating Barack Obama’s own decision to shun the supposed easy money of corporate America…”
But it would have been easy money from corporate America. They pay for such connections. Think Hillary Clinton as investor, or Jesse Jackson as race relations consultant.
unsubscribe
This not that hard to figure out, Obama and the rest of his comrades, socialist or progressives. What ever you want to call them, these are the people Obama listens to and has around him to guide him. All Obama and his czars are doing is over loading the capitalistic system with what he calls social justice, entitlements, which do not exist in the US Constitution. You know everyone gets free stuff, that they have never worked for, but come on comrade we all deserve a big house, free food, free medical, free education even if you did not work for any of it. Rich Americans are evil even though Americans send more foreign aid to the rest of the world, than any other nation. Evil Americans have all so protected Europe and a lot of people around the world. We have even protected Muslims around the world even though some Muslims are killing Americans, because we do not think like them. I bet you can not wait for all the goodies, Obama is going to give you when he finally takes all American business over and the government runs all business. That is when the comrade elite start killing off people who do not think like they do! I bet you can not wait!
Rich folk create jobs for one main reason, to get richer. If you don’t want rich folk getting richer, you don’t want rich folk creating more jobs. And that’s, in practice, what Obama is getting.
Fine reason to distrust Obama, and all anti-Bush tax cuts (for the rich!).
The commies hated the (rich!) kulaks (property owners), and killed them. (International socialists)
The later nazis hated the (rich!) Jews, and killed them. (National socialists).
Today, the PC socialists hate the rich! — so want to tax them and take their property and end their incentives to produce more. Plus hate them for not creating more jobs.
Its about power, not idealism or an earnest desire to better the welfare of our country. Obama, the ex-Community Organizer and ex-member of Trinity United Church, believes in a nepotistic economic system that will perpetually increase his power base.
Like a greedy corporate executive who showers himself with bonuses as he cooks the company books, government funds can redistributed to build political support. To hell with the economy. Money grows on trees in Obamaland.
I will stay worried VDH. “The book of favors,” also called the tax code, needs to be simplified, not for ease of filling out tax forms, but to curb the massive corruption. The givers and receivers of favors will never give up that power. It is too intertwined in everything they do.
A clear, simple and predictable tax code would make this economy soar more than any other single thing.
It’s not that the President understands or doesn’t understand. He now finds himself challenged. He will not give ground except on inconsequential matters!
Excellent summary of the problem, Dr. Hanson!
For myself, the most revealing moment during the campaign was the Charlie Gibson interview: Obama’s ignorance of basic economics was never fully exposed by the sycophantic, tingled media. Apparently, Obama still believes wealth in free markets is a “zero sum” game. Now we shall all pay the price for his ignorance and arrogance.
I mean there are Nobel Prize winners that disagree with you, but reasonable people can debate right?
“What worries me about President Obama is really one general issue: his very concrete enjoyment of the good life as evidenced by his golf outings, Martha’s Vineyard vacations, and imperial entourages that accompany him abroad, and yet his obvious distrust of the private sector and the success of the wealthy. Yet my discomfort here is not even one that arises from an obvious hypocrisy of, say, a Michelle on the 2008 campaign trail lecturing the nation about its meanness or her own previous lack of pride in her country, juxtaposed with her taste for the publicly provided rarefied enjoyments of a Costa del Sol hideaway at a time of recession.”
You know every president in the 20th century has done this. Your hate of Obamma and anything different than you is palpable. Unfortunately this ignorance spreads easily. How about Palin getting $4Mil/year from Fox news for doing NOTHING. How much has Rush Limbaugh made with his nonsense.
Why does everyone refer to BHO as black. We all know his mother was white and suspect his father was a black man from Nigeria. Given what we know of his mother’s life style the father part is not as certain. My reasoning then causes me to tell myself that BHO is at least 50% white (if not more). Therefore racism can’t be involved. He truly represents white and black. Whether it is the best or worst of either is for each of us to judge for ourselves.